By Alexander Cornwell
JERUSALEM, Oct 1 (Reuters) – No motive has yet been determined for an apparent attempt to crash a passenger jet on its way to Israel, and an initial assessment suggested the co-pilot who stabbed the captain acted alone, Israeli officials said on Thursday.
Disaster was averted on Wednesday’s flydubai flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv after the wounded captain managed to unlock the cockpit door, allowing passengers to subdue the attacker and a reserve crew that had been aboard to land the plane in Saudi Arabia.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attacker was being investigated in Saudi Arabia, where the plane, with more than 170 people on board, landed safely at Tabuk airport. Netanyahu said he believed the attacker would be taken to the United Arab Emirates.
Two Israeli security officials said Israel’s initial assessment is that the co-pilot was likely acting alone, though the investigation was still ongoing.
Israel’s envoy to the UAE, Yossi Shelley, told Reuters it was too early to draw conclusions and no motive had been determined. Another Israeli official said Israel was not receiving all the information it sought from the Saudis and that Israeli intelligence services, Mossad and Shin Bet, were investigating the incident as well.
The Saudi government’s media office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
SUDDEN PLUNGE
The flight plunged nearly 14,000 feet in less than 30 seconds during the incident as it flew over Saudi Arabia on the journey from the United Arab Emirates to Israel.
In an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Netanyahu said Israel would be “following and possibly also participating in this investigation”.
Asked if there was any indication of Iranian involvement, Netanyahu said it was too early to say. “We’ll get to the root of this attacker, whether he had accomplices, whether Iran was behind it. I think we’ll find out very soon,” Netanyahu said.
There have been no official suggestions from Israel of Iranian involvement.
The two Israeli security officials said Israel had not identified any Iranian involvement so far.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday that Israel’s preliminary information indicated that the co-pilot aimed to crash the plane, describing him as a terrorist, though Netanyahu only described it as “a serious security incident”.
Iran’s permanent mission in Geneva did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
UAE INVESTIGATING POSSIBLE ‘PLANNING OR DIRECTION’
The UAE has started investigations that are seeking to establish the circumstances and motives and determine “whether the incident was linked to any terrorist activity or purpose, or involved prior planning or direction”, the UAE state news agency reported on Thursday.
UAE judicial authorities have jurisdiction over the incident because the aircraft is registered in the UAE and flies under its flag, the statement said, adding that UAE law applies to crimes committed on board even if they occur outside the country’s territory.
On Wednesday, an Israeli official identified the attacker as an Omani national.
Omani authorities have not commented on the report.
Saudi Arabia has issued no statements on its investigations.
Saudi Arabia’s Tabuk airport said on Wednesday that both pilots had been hospitalised after sustaining injuries.
Flydubai said on Wednesday that the underlying reasons for the event remained unknown and warned against “premature speculation”.
The incident heightened security fears in Israel weeks before Israelis vote in the first election since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks, with Israel’s security figuring prominently in the campaigning.
The US and Israel launched strikes against Iran in February, in a conflict that quickly spread to the Gulf and Lebanon, where Israel has been fighting Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.
CAPTAIN HAILED AS A HERO
Netanyahu and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have hailed the flight FZ1073 captain and Indian national Smit Machchhar as a hero. India’s ambassador to the UAE met Captain Machchhar’s family and briefed him on his health and recovery, the Indian consulate in the UAE said.
Netanyahu, in his interview with Fox News, said Machchhar had apparently been stabbed or hit with an axe by the other pilot and had bled profusely.
Israel has also lauded passengers who subdued the attacker.
Yaniv Hayun, one of the men who incapacitated the attacker, described running to the cockpit as the plane nosedived.
“We pulled the assailant out, I pulled him out. After I pulled him out we took control of the plane, I pulled up the yoke (steering control of the plane), I straightened the plane out a bit,” he said, talking to reporters upon his return to Israel on Wednesday.
(Additional reporting by Eman Abouhassira and Jana Choukeir in Dubai, Kanishka Singh in Washington; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Aidan Lewis)
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